desperate to leave the house over the holidays? needing some literature to keep yourself sane? drop by the annual Peter F. Yacht Club reading + Christmas Party, with readings by Yacht Club regulars & irregulars, including Monty Reid, rob mclennan, Amanda Earl, Pearl Pirie, Cameron Anstee, Marilyn Irwin + plenty of others; lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Carleton Tavern, upstairs
doors 7pm, readings 7:30pm;
info on pfyc & links to issues here:
http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2010/08/peter-f-yacht-club-miscellany.html

Dozens of poets have answered the 12 or 20 question series over the last 3 years. It expanded with another set directed at small press people. The lastest is Lary Bremner (Timewell) on Obvious Epiphanies Press. His answer to question 10 remarks on the paradigm shift of what paper publishing means now that more people have access:

How do you approach the idea of publishing your own writing? Some, such as Gary Geddes when he still ran Cormorant, refused such, yet various Coach House Press’ editors had titles during their tenures as editors for the press, including Victor Coleman and bpNichol. What do you think of the arguments for or against, or do you see the whole question as irrelevant?
Question irrelevant; aversions personal. Me, I’d much rather have someone else publish my work, but in the internet age it really does not actually matter.

That gets to what Richard (Tai) Grove. was saying about how the publishing pyramid has inverted. Whereas before you would bring your written goods and the publisher would have a ready loyal audience that would buy whatever that publisher promoted, now it is the onus on the writer to develop the audience and bring that as part of the package to the publisher. (Is that new? or strictly true?)
The economics of a company for life has shifted to freelancer across the board so it makes sense that publishing wouldn’t be impervious to what is happening everywhere else. You are only as good as your last week of work in a part-time contract work-no benefits system.
People who stay in industry for decades can see the people who stay and longitudinally distinguish themselves but the market memory is pretty short. Appetites are voracious for things written well but things written well take a long time. It is like the ratio of how long it takes to prepare French cuisine versus the time it takes to eat it. How do you keep things balanced? What do you do for food if you aren’t a home-chef? What do you consume?
If there is no gatekeeper, no food or writing marketing board filtering, do you have to become leery of how much rotten or lower grade goods get thru or do farmers or writers self-monitor well enough?
William Allegrezza on Moira says

What do you see as the most effective way to get new publications out into the world?

The e-zine is a quick way to spread work around the world, but really, I think getting work published has become much easier than it used to be, and the big part today seems to be drawing attention to a publication, not just publishing it.

It’s not the What of what’s published, nor the Who of what’s published. Information getting words published is no longer the bottleneck it was. Distributing information when there is no central information source is the greater challenge and deal breaker.
Paper is harder to move around than words by electronic means (from where I’m sitting but some have aversions to computer and prefer anonymous cash and a paper book.) Ideas are easiest to move around by word of mouth but freedom of movement has limits of cash, energy, schedule issues, body scanners, visas. The written word can percolate in where the bodies can’t get to.
The advantage of internet files is that there is no pyramid. If one node goes down, the information goes around another route. It can’t readily be blocked except when we rely on a small number of service providers and monopoliesWeb sites can be blocked, or only some allowed. Books can be burned. Conversations are more nimble. What is spoken can pass censors but it
If we publish online only and leave out the economic model, setting aside the opportunity cost of time and energies spent, can we then leave behind paper and keep the essential nature of publishing, which is communication.
Brian Clements on Firewheel Editions/sentence magazine.

In reality, poetry isn’t a commercial market, it’s just a conversation that we’re having with ourselves and with our culture, with our language. We don’t publish to reach the public; we publish to reach those who are genuinely interested in the conversation.

Rolf Maurer on New Star Book said,

publishing is an eminently social act. […] on one level, I’m not so much interacting with a literary community, but a community of citizens […] some of whom identify as readers and some more of whom from time to time read a book, and thus might be interested in what a given writer has to say, a given book has to offer.

For publishing to be collective brain storming among willing participants…like that cooperative model. Some of conversation is not interaction but soap boxing oblivious to audience. It makes sense that a certain amount of publishing would be the same kind of venting as a stage of getting a handle of ideas and understandings.
The advantage of print is that near distance we can maintain, rereading verbatim, expanding the sense of context with reading what that person was reading from, learning the worldview that was entrenched that informed the utterance. We can do that with real-time spoken interaction as well to be an informed and informative audience. Is there more work when you are speaking knowing there will be an accurate transcript? Or at least as accurate as the willingness to hear intent? Like a photo can portray bone structure, accuracy of a moment, or some sense of the character of the person portrayed or portraying even if it wasn’t a representative or complete record, words can be the same. A playing of facets.
Other interviews in the series:
Jenny Penberthy on The Capilano Review.
Angela Carr on Tente.
Mark McCawley on Greensleeve Editions.
Jenna Butler on Rubicon Press.
Edward Smallfield on Apogee Press.
Cameron Anstee on Apt. 9 Press.
Anita Lahey on ARC magazine.
Antonio D’Alfonso on Guernica Editions.
Christophe Casamassima on Furniture Press.
Dave Proctor on Wooden Rocket Press.

Lookie that, Ridley recommended been shed bore on the Advent book blog; “great books recommended by great people”. Sweet. 🙂

The 2010 Origami Crane Contest, best poem at Tree‘s open mic, as chosen by this year’s judge Monty Reid and presented by Rod Pederson. It is the poem folded into a crane, in this case on bamboo paper and attached to the award.
Monty Reid’s short list includes:
Mary Lee Bragg, for “Take a Picture, It’ll Last Longer”
Terry Ann Carter, for “Haiku from Cambodia”
Grant Savage, for from “Lips Poured – #3”
Dee Hobsbawn-Smith, for “Pottery in the Cypress Hills”
Claudia Coutu Radmore, for “afternoon moon pie”

Terry Ann Carter won the 2010 Origami Crane Open Mic contest.

There was an award for best performance at Tree. The panel was unanimous that it was Paul Macken won for best presentation at Tree in the year for his Dead Poet presentation on Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Beyond the presentations there was an all open mic. I think everyone in the room read save a couple people.

Sue Bowness giving the last reading of the year from her The Days You’ve Spent

Colin Morton reading from Pith & Wry at the Xmas Tree Open Mic. He was also the fastest for most of the poetry trivia question door prizes.

Cameron Anstee, last year’s winner of the Origami Crane, reading a new poem, deft as his usual.

Margaret Malloch Zielinski was doing a comic retort in form to Marlowe’s The Passionate Shepherd to his Love, assisted by Paul Mackan. Marlowe wasn’t taken up on his offer and how.
And Janet, Baird, Richard, myself, and several more that I didn’t get good pictures of read as well.

Claudia Coutu Radmore reading out the trivia questions for the door prizes. Which reader to Tree wrote translations of Paul Celan? Which late American poet used phrenology? Who won the governor general award for poetry this year? Who wrote Noble Gas, Penny Black? Which Canadian poet wrote a poem about sexual carrots? Each right answer won a book from the surprise bag. (I suggested best plausible should take it but ah well.)
Tree returns for a new season January 11th. Same time, same place. Arts Court, 2nd Floor. 6:45-7:45 I’ll lead a workshop on editing a poem down. 8:00 the feature reader.

Up on the desk as the next journeys are these poetry titles:
The Chimney Stone: Ghazals by Rob Winger (Nightwood Editions, 2010)
Names Above Houses by Oliver de la Paz (Southern Illinois University Press, 2001)
Reticent Bodies by Moez Surani (Wolsak and Wynn, 2009)
Sonnets by Camille Martin (Shearsman Books, 2010)
The Long Landscape by Paul Wilson (Coteau Books, 1999)
Ten Thousand Miles Between Us by Rocco di Giacomo (Quattro Books, 2009)
Nature by Mark Truscott (BookThug, 2010)
The Best of It: New and Selected by Kay Ryan (Grove Press, 2010)
(made) by Cara Benson (BookThug, 2010)
Never More There by Stephen Rowe (Nightwood Editions, 2009)
Looking at that I may want to add more books by females, and of classics, and several to re-read, to round out the diet.